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Roadmap
April 15, 2026 at 11:54 PM
Correct roadmap page to distinguish between current confirmed launch-state facts, the March 23 work-in-progress pre-launch post, and still-future roadmap items.
Windrose does not currently have a date-by-date public roadmap. What Kraken Express has published instead is a broad Early Access direction: the game is expected to stay in Early Access for about 1.5 to 2.5 years and grow by roughly 50 percent before the 1.0 release. The studio has also said it wants to turn launch feedback into a more detailed roadmap later, rather than locking one in before enough players have touched the live build.
That distinction matters because several Windrose pages and third-party articles blurred together three different things: current launch-state facts, pre-launch work-in-progress intentions, and genuine future roadmap promises. This page separates them.
Topic | Best Current Public Answer |
|---|---|
Early Access length | Roughly 1.5 to 2.5 years |
Total growth target before 1.0 | About 50 percent more content than the Early Access launch build |
Detailed date-by-date roadmap | Not published yet |
Future biome direction | At least one future biome is part of the plan; Ashlands is the clearest named example |
Console version timing | No concrete console schedule or platforms announced |
Official mod support | Still future-facing; the studio talks about making modding technically feasible |
The March 23, 2026 Steam news post is one of the most cited Windrose sources, but it is often misread. Kraken Express explicitly called that list work in progress and said some of the mentioned features could change or never make it into the game. In other words, it was a pre-launch status update, not a final contractual launch checklist.
That is especially important for multiplayer interpretation. The March 23 post discussed ideas like more players in co-op and co-op on one ship through battery manning, but the safer current official baseline after launch still comes from the FAQ and launch-facing messaging: up to 8 players total, one player commanding one ship, and broader shared-ship roles still being explored.
The March 23 update matters because it showed the studio's immediate pre-launch priorities in unusually concrete language. Kraken Express highlighted more players in co-op, co-op battery manning on one ship, randomized loot, hold-to-gather, an FOV slider, rougher backing vocals for shanties, a dedicated Signal Fire building piece, DLSS and FSR support, controller improvements, a dismantling workbench, and target-lock switching. But the studio paired that list with a direct warning that the items were still work in progress and some might change or never make it into the game.
That means the list is best used as roadmap context, not as a launch checklist. It tells you what the team believed players cared about most after the demo, and it gives useful insight into design priorities, but it does not override cleaner launch-facing sources when there is a conflict.
The multiplayer bullets from March 23 are where most downstream confusion came from. The post said the team was introducing battery manning and testing a higher co-op limit, while also warning that real performance would depend on player connections and server hardware and that the best gameplay experience still seemed to sit in the 1-to-4-player range. After launch, the official FAQ and launch messaging settled on a clearer public baseline: up to 8 players total, dedicated servers supported, one player commanding one ship, and broader multi-crew features still in the exploration stage.
In practical wiki terms, that means you should not read the March 23 post as proof that Windrose launched with a fully realized Sea of Thieves-style shared-ship role system. It is better evidence of what Kraken Express wanted to test and pursue than of what it had definitively locked in.
Bucket | How To Treat It |
|---|---|
Launch-state facts | Use official FAQ, launch post, Steam news, and dedicated-server guide. These describe what players can rely on now. |
March 23 pre-launch improvements post | Use as context for what the team was trying to ship or improve, but not as a guarantee that every bullet landed exactly as previewed. |
Future roadmap promises | Use only where Kraken Express clearly frames something as later Early Access or post-launch work. |
More biomes beyond the launch three, with Ashlands remaining the most clearly documented planned biome
More ships, ship equipment, and broader naval progression beyond the current launch lineup
More enemies, bosses, and points of interest across the Caribbean archipelago
More weapons, armor, and general build diversity
Additional story content beyond the Chapter 1 launch campaign
Continued quality-of-life work, onboarding cleanup, optimization, and multiplayer polish
None of those categories currently have public dates attached to them. That is the central fact of the roadmap as of April 16, 2026: the direction is broad but clear, while the sequencing is still intentionally open. Players should expect the studio to respond first to live friction and only later to publish a more formal long-horizon schedule.
Ashlands is not live. It was revealed during the Crosswind-era August 2025 pivot messaging and remains one of the clearest future-biome ideas in public developer communication. But as of April 16, 2026, it is still planned content rather than current content.
Deep multi-crew role play on a single ship as a settled, official launch feature
Any player-cap expansion beyond the current official 8-player messaging
Stronger permissions, storage security, and broader social-governance tools for larger communities
This does not mean the team is against those ideas. It means Kraken Express has not yet published the kind of hard confirmation that should let the wiki describe them as current features.
Launch week also showed which roadmap items may get pulled forward by reality. Server-link issues, discovery friction, onboarding confusion, combat complaints, and social-trust complaints around chest security all surfaced immediately. Even without a formal roadmap, that response pattern gives strong evidence that early patches are likely to keep leaning toward stability, onboarding, and friction reduction before the biggest content expansions arrive.
That reading is reinforced by the launch-day hotfix itself. Hotfix 0.10.0.1.6 dealt with localization, Nitrado link correction, and safer server-info visibility rather than new content. It was an operations-first update, which is exactly what you would expect from a team still stabilizing a popular Early Access release.
Windrose remains a PvE-first game. PvP is not part of the current core roadmap.
The business model remains buy-to-play, not microtransaction-driven or live-service-driven.
The team is prioritizing the PC build first, with console work only discussed as a later ambition.
Which quality-of-life fixes come before the first major biome-sized content update
Whether deeper multi-crew ship play becomes a near-term or late-term Early Access goal
How much of the next content wave will focus on story progression versus systems expansion
When, if ever, official mod support graduates from technical possibility to documented feature
Whether console work remains post-1.0 only or starts overlapping with the later PC Early Access phase
Those unanswered questions are not evidence of missing planning. They are evidence that Kraken Express is still choosing not to over-promise while the live build is only days old. Until the studio publishes a more explicit roadmap, that restraint is itself part of the roadmap story.
If you read the launch-week response closely, the first roadmap pressure points are obvious: onboarding clarity, combat feel, hosting ergonomics, and trust tools for multiplayer worlds. That is an inference from player and press reaction, not a quoted roadmap promise. But it is the clearest way to understand what kind of updates the community is likely to prioritize before bigger biome-sized expansions arrive.
The launch-day hotfix already supports that reading. Kraken Express used its first post-release update on operational issues such as localization, Nitrado link correction, and safer server-info visibility rather than flashy new content. That is exactly how a team behaves when it is still stabilizing the live foundation.
The official Steam news feed for launch posts, hotfixes, and future roadmap messaging
playwindrose.com for long-form announcements
The official Discord for fast-moving clarifications and community pain points
Early Access - the live-launch state and current pricing/build facts
Launch Reception - what launch week revealed about player priorities
Multiplayer - current co-op reality versus future-facing expectations
Ashlands - the best-documented future biome so far
